Make Value Stocks Work for Your Portfolio

In the midst of this volatile market, value stocks are garnering more interest. With rising commodity costs and the tightening financial markets leading to decelerating growth rates across the globe, investors are no longer as willing to bid up the highest earnings growers to exorbitant price-to-earnings levels.

That's where a strategy of value investing can really pay off. Using traditional valuation metrics like P/E, price-to-book value and enterprise value-to-EBITDA, investors should focus on names that are less expensive than their peers.

Growth can also be part of the equation, but only when a stock is trading at a reasonable price. In this manner, investors can still play hot sectors such as energy, infrastructure and mining with less volatility than the faster-growing, higher-priced names carry. ...